Working Life

Full disclosure. I’m typing this blog on a Mac. Within reach is my IPhone. So, this is not some sort of stealth pro-PC campaign. But, enough already — Apple is perhaps one of the biggest corporate tax dodgers in history. And it’s OUR money that Apple is salting away in tax havens around the world — money that isn’t going to the Treasury to fund schools, roads, health care and you name it. I’m right there at the point of throwing all my Apple products away — or at least pledging never to set foot in another Apple store again. What about you?

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This is not really an entirely new story. But, it’s good to see something positive about organized labor — and particularly about a dynamic labor leader.

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If you want change, you have to be consistent. And consistency means you have to call out people no matter what political stripe the person might carry. So, it’s just a fact that Penny Pritzker, the president’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, has been the beneficiary of an off-shore tax dodge.

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The inexorable march to another big financial crisis takes another baby step every day. The banks, hey, they just keep spreading their muscle and graft everywhere to make sure that nothing changes. To wit.

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In the annals of “this is no surprise” let me chalk up yet another example of the immoral behavior of the Wal-Mart family: it is not interested in signing on to a broadly accepted new safety code of practice in Bangladesh. No–the greed and avarice of the five Walton heirs, each of whom is worth around $20 billion, has no upper limit. Even if it means people get killed — though I guess if they aren’t white people and they are far away in another land, the Waltons just don’t care.

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The ghastly industrial killing field in the garment factory in Bangladesh has now claimed over 1,100 lives. Hard to even fathom. But, there is a sliver of hope that out of this massacre of workers will come a little improvement.

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Yesterday, after one week of silence and stonewalling, Lesley Stahl’s name disappeared from the list of Advisors to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. But, this story is not quite over. CBS continues to stonewall over the circumstances of Stahl’s service on the Peterson Foundation Advisors’ board — which was a blatant violation of basic ethical journalistic standards and CBS’ own ethical guidelines. Let us refer to this as Stahlgate — and as usual it’s the cover-up that is the worst part of this saga.

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A week ago, I wrote about Lesley Stahl’s obvious,no-brainer, significant conflict of interest. I wrote to CBS asking for an explanation. Crickets. Are we going to let this nonsense continue

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The toll has risen to more than 800 in Bangladesh. I suppose that must be a threshold of human death and suffering that even Wal-Mart can’t ignore. So, the Beast of Bentonville and some of its sidekicks are getting together to set, uh, labor standards.

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I honestly don’t care if Chris Christie is fat. I don’t care much about him in general. But, it is fascinating that the media discussion over his weight issues fails to make what seems to be a logical point about the danger of handing someone like Christie any power: he shows a pattern of lack of self control.

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Of all the surrenders to corporate power health care has got to rank right up at the top of the list. Obamacare’s failures come down to an unwillingness to consign the insurance industry to the trash heap of history and a deal which guaranteed the drug companies billions of dollars in profits. Which makes the news about slowing health care costs even more infuriating.

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Bodies. More bodies. More horror.

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Earlier today, I wrote about Leslie Stahl’s serious breach of basic journalistic standards due to her service on the advisory board of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. I’ve followed this up with a letter to CBS’ management seeking an explanation.

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Why is Leslie Stahl sitting on the Advisory Board of an organization deeply involved in a contentious political debate? And is her service on that Advisory Board blessed by “60 Minutes”? Or were Stahl’s superiors even aware of her service? In any case, if “60 Minutes” has any inclination to adhere to CBS’ ethical guidelines, Stahl must be forced to resign from the board.

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May Day doesn’t get any respect in the U.S. which prefers to ignore the day. But, rumblings around the world, mostly in opposition to the mindless imposition of austerity, are on the menu — and makes one think that it’s about time the streets heated up in the same way in the U.S., not just in one Occupy Wall Street square but far more broadly.

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I’m not sure what the ILO has in mind or can do — it is hostage to the politics of inertia. But, at least there is a chance this will keep the pressure on.

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